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The Darkest Colors
For All Nails Pt 138B: The Darkest Colors by President Chester A. Arthur ---- :Prescott's Point, Angel Island, California :2 June 1949 :100 hours The vitavision, a model that had been old even before the war began, flickered a few times before the news image returned. The old Kramer compound in Guadalajara in flames, the shifting red glow highlighting the green uniforms of the cheering MVL FN1 men and the three dangling forms by the lampposts. Madre de Dios, thought Sheriff Walker Bush, let those be effigies. Bush watched, transfixed, until the commander of the Guadalajara garrison came onto the broadcast, explaining why it was so difficult to keep the veterans organizations from attacking ex-Kramer men and ex-Kramer property, and why the anti-war movement had to be crushed so thoroughly. "Hey!" He smacked the cellulite tabletop, pulling the morgue attendant from his dog shift entertainment. "Doctor Kandinsky said the autopsy was finished?" The attendant, a middle-aged German with dark glasses in a wheelchair, looked up, his left arm jerking up like a live thing and pointing at the interior door. "In room THREE, mein...ah, jefe." "Thank you . . . " Bush shook his head as he walked past the man into the morgue proper, his jackboots hollow on the steel floor. Kandinsky, a Siberian refugee, had made the city morgue a sanctuary for the flotsam and jetsam of several shattered continents. He recognized a Chinaman washing an exam table before he found the third door. "Ah, Señor Bush! Bueno day!" The beefy former Siberian medic waved as the sheriff walked into the room, a Caroline cigarette clamped between his lips and his hands gesticulating in the air. Kandinsky's hands were a study in colors; red and cracked from a lifetime of antiseptic hand-washing, pale and bleached from the gloves he favored, and black from things Bush would rather not think about. Just like he'd rather not think about what, or who, he knew lay beyond the curtain behind the coroner. "You're a prompt man, you don't see that much in the hombres in blue." "Yes, well, I wasn't doing much." Bush remembered Eva. Hispano, and so one of the very few non-Anglos in his social group; there because her grandfather's failing cattle ranch had turned out to sit on the largest silver mine in Mexico del Norte. They'd been engaged, or nearly so, before he'd gone off to war, they'd exchanged letters until April 30, 1945, when he'd opened a Dear Juan letter while standing in the barracks of Base Calles, the small Air Corps base in Nambre. FN2 Leisure time hadn't seemed like so much after that. "So, you've got the results?" "Yes, of course!" Kandinsky swept aside the curtain and Bush nearly vomited. He concentrated on the doctor's eyes, black and bloodshot, the red reflection from the exam table all he could handle right now. "Subject is a nineteen year-old Anglo female, identified as Julia Clinton of Brooklyn City . . . " He raised an eyebrow. "I hope the Tory consulate doesn't get pissy, damn uppity norte americanos . . . " " . . . And for your valor, Captain Bush, I and the Congress of the United States of Mexico award you our highest and most sacred decoration of valor, the Purple Heart of Honor . . . " As the President pinned the medal to Bush's hospital pillow and delivered his speech, Bush caught Silva's eyes and realized that Mexico's national leader believed everything and knew nothing. "Traces of marihuana and alcohol in her system, but of course the cause of death is obvious." "And that's why we want you for the Order of the Eagle and Serpent, Walker." The Mexico City party was crowded, but he suddenly felt alone in the room with Manuel Huddleston. "You're a war hero, you're an Anglo, you're an honorable man . . . " He leaned closer. "We've got to do something about those pacifist cabróns, mi amigo, before they bring down the republic and all we've accomplished." "Left leg is completely absent along with lower third of the viscera, right leg missing approximately two inches above the right knee, right hand and forearm missing to just below the elbow. These other bites here, where the eyes and lips and ears used to be, were mostly our friends the crabs and our friends the seagulls . . . " "You know we need veterans, Walker." Martin Wadsworth's eyes glittered excitedly when he spoke, the same way they had glitterered when discussing the United Mexicans back at University. "They can't keep cracking down on us, calling us norte aristo spies and cowards, if we have an Honor Medal winner on the Central Rainbow Commission, you could let us hit them back and hard . . . " "So, my verdict is definitely that this was a--" "Shark attack." Bush felt himself flush pale and his voice start to crack. "Definitely a shark attack." Kandinsky laughed. It was deep, rich, and not a pleasant sound. "You know our friend the great white?" "Oh, yes." ---- :2 June 1949 :800 hours "And so we've got to close the beaches, Miguel." The German clock on the wall started to chime and Bush nearly jumped out of his skin. His visit to the morgue had shaken him far worse than he'd first thought, and an anxious seven hours drinking New Granada's Own hadn't helped his nerves. "There's a big Shore Patrol station at Colorado City, FN3 they've got professional shark hunters I can bring in to kill sharks; I can put out deputies on shark patrol, maybe ask Commodore Carranza . . . " "Walker, Walker . . . " Miguel Sanchez had been Mayor of Prescott's Point since the Calles administration. There was a reason for that. He smiled perfect teeth and stood up from his German hardwood desk. "I know you're doing your best to impress your new community, and believe me, we're all very impressed. But think for a minute." He gestured grandly to the big window next to him, to the city spread out below. "You know most of our neighboring communities have gone under in the last eight years. The men drafted, the mujers and niños on relief or starving in a tenement in Santa Fe. We've been lucky, damn lucky, and we're on--" Sanchez picked up a razor-sharp bayonet. As a young man, he'd fought in a "Volunteers for Order" company after the French invaded. There was a reason there were only five ex-slaves on the island. "--a knife-edge here. If you close the beaches, if you announce that there's a shark in our ocean, it'll kill this town sure as a bullet in the gut. You know sharks, they come, they eat whatever's around, they leave. If our boy has only had one attack since he got here, I'm guessing he's far, far away by now. I know you don't want to look like an Anglo padrone destroying a Mexicano town, but if you do this . . . " ---- "Damn it, damn it, damn it . . . " Bush was cursing under his breath as he walked out of the municipal building; fortunately there was still no crowd at this hour to notice the sheriff cursing up a storm. Maybe he's right, Bush thought, I don't know everything, maybe it was just a one-time attack, and I don't want these people to starve . . . maybe I just need some sleep. Bush was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he barely noticed the graffiti on his patrol loke until he'd reached the green and gold craft. ARISTO IR HOGAR!, it screamed in the Spanish of a poorly educated Hispano, in the red and black of cheap boat paint. COBARDE MUERTE! The windscreen's glass was shattered. "Damn. It." ---- Forward to FAN #138C (3 June 1949): The Second Attack. Return to For All Nails. Category:Walker Bush